Without a trace
by SassyJ
Summary: A kidnap... a friendship ... an armed robbery. Three completely unconnected things. Or are they?
1. Missing 30 hours

He was so cold. They'd taken his jacket, his shoes and socks, though where they thought he was going, he couldn't have said. He tried to work out where he was, how he had got there. But he couldn't remember, nothing substantial before this tiny little space that was his whole world. They had taped his eyes shut, and a heavy chain bound his wrists together, wrapped around his arms pinning them to his sides, the chain wrapped round his legs, binding his ankles together. The weight of the chain hurt, his wrists and ankles were hurting, the weight of the chain dragging heavily, the weight of his body pressing the wrapped chain into his arm. Weight dragging him down. It was as though it was some how attached to his brain... the weight... Images whirled around in his mind, locked inside his blind world, he tried to get a handle on it. He lay still. If he really concentrated, he could hear a voice. A woman's voice. Warm, caring. Somehow this woman meant a lot to him. He knew it, but he couldn't remember why.

Hands hauled him into a sitting position, a bottle was held to his lips, and he drank. His head was pounding, deep inside his subconscious there was something telling him to resist, to turn away, not to drink. The pain in his head got worse every time they made him drink.

Clouds in his mind, he tried to push back but resistance was futile...

He was moving. He could feel movement, he could hear the sound of a car's engine, something heavy was covering him. He tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Something told him that he had to get out of there. If he didn't he was dead. He moved a little. His ankles were free, the heavy chain that had bound them was now wrapped more securely round his body, pinning his arms to his sides, his wrists were still bound together. He was hurting, but he forced himself to concentrate, he had to get the blindfold off.

Struggling against the chains, he managed to get his thumb under the edge of the tape. He eased it up, wincing as the sticky pulled at his hair, his head ached fiercely as he finally managed to drag the tape off. His eyes ached too, and he blinked trying to clear his blurred vision without success. He was weak and dizzy, but he had one thought in his head, to get away. Carefully he pushed the heavy rug to one side. Fear made him slow and careful, a nameless dread in his mind that this was his last chance. If he didn't get away now, he would die.

_Save me..._ a name popped into his mind... he tried to voice that name in his head... but it was gone again, buried in the clouds that were rolling in. The van had stopped. He heard voices. But they were moving away, and he couldn't be sure they weren't in his head. He had to do it. He leaned against the door, his bound hands scrabbling for the plastic handle. It was old and broken and it took several tries for it to work. Mechanically he kept at it, the half remembered call of a woman's voice in his head, urging him on. The door opened.

It was pitch dark, and the rain was coming down hard. The ground was cold and wet and stoney beneath his bare feet. Instinct carried him forward. A survival imperative that he wasn't entirely sure of, but obeyed anyway. He stumbled forward, the icy unforgiving stones cutting his bare feet, until he reached a smooth surface. A road. He crossed it. The rain was soaking his body and he could barely see a thing in the darkness but he kept going. The voice was calling him back. He had to get to her. He didn't know her name. But he knew he had to get to her. With her he would be safe.


	2. Missing 57 hours

She stood in front of the board and looked up at it. Trying to assimilate all the information gathered on the board in her head. If she could only gather it all in, like a computer perhaps she could compute and spit out the answer.

57 hours. Approaching 58. She held that impossible number in her head. She looked at the board. At the players. One significant player was still unknown. She looked all round the board. He was at the side. Tacked on. An afterthought. She looked up at the picture. An official office picture. Taken for the records. His official smile in place. She thought of the photo in her wallet. Creased at the edges. Carefully folded to fit. Him and her. Sat on his desk. His arm around her waist, his hand resting casually on her hip, her arm around his neck. Turned slightly towards each other, looking at each other more than the camera. Friends. The real him, his real personality showing out beyond the usual office face he presented to the world.

"Fifty-seven hours.... he could be...."

She turned to face the speaker. "He could be... but he isn't.... I know it." Her tone came out fierce, protective. Mother Wolf.

"I know you know it... but..." the voice wobbled.

"But nothing... he's out there."

The speaker nodded.

She turned back to the board, as if committing it to memory would save him, and her. Because without him the world would be a little greyer, her job would be a bit more stressful, and she would have less in her life than she did already. Her job was her life. If his job cost him his life, she wasn't sure she wanted to go on with hers. Knowing that her skills were insufficient to save him would be too high a price to live with.

They all counted. Every case. Every single case of every day that she'd been on the job. She'd made a career out of succeeding, sometimes where others had failed. But she didn't care about her perfect record. What use was a perfect record. It was a statistic. One failure would cost her everything. Any failure was bad. But to fail now would be the end.

They'd said to her that she was too close. She'd pointed out that it was precisely because she was too close that she would succeed. Coldly and logically she ran them through it. Her patience tried to breaking point when one of her superiors tried to second guess every move she was going to make. Failure was not an option. Her DCI had listened. He'd thought about it. And he'd come down on her side. Firmly. End of subject.

She looked at the official photo again. She longed to whip the creased picture from her wallet, and put it up there. The real him, show the friend she knew and loved as he really was, not the poster boy, but the gentle, guarded and vulnerable man who covered his own insecurities with arrogance.

"I will find you." She promised him... the real him.


	3. Found 62 hours

The traffic patrol officers found him stumbling along the road. Jones, the driver, barely had time to swerve and brake as they rounded the bend. Morgan was out of the car, and across the road to the strange shambling figure.

He took in the heavy chain wrapped round the wrists, pinning the man's arms to his body, the bruised and bleeding hands and feet, the man's curiously unfocussed gaze, and realised with shock where he had seen the man before. "Dai, we need an ambulance, and you best call it in... we've found him." The man swayed, and Morgan grabbed him before he could hit the ground, Jones moved to help and together they laid him on the ground carefully.

Waiting for the ambulance, they did what they could to make him more comfortable. Morgan produced a set of bolt cutters from the back of their vehicle, and, wearing gloves, they stripped the chain away, putting it in an evidence bag. Jones looked at the bruising and swelling on the wrists and the cuts on his hands and feet. "Jesus... poor bastard."

~*~*~*~*~

Their inspector was not so convinced. Jones stared at the woman in disbelief. "With respect ma'am he couldn't have done that to himself."

The inspector sighed, that was rather what she had suspected. And the doctor's assessment was in line with Jones' view. But they'd had difficulty getting the pictures of his injuries, and she had wondered at that.

~*~*~*~*~

He was alive. He was out of their hands. But he still didn't feel safe. The others had wanted to take pictures of his injuries, and at first he had let them, for some reason he knew he had to. But it was all too much. He'd been handled and abused for so long, he could no longer cope with the prying eyes and hands. Even the tap on his arm, as the man in the white coat had tried to patiently explain that they needed to put the drip in, as he had pulled it out twice. They'd splinted his arm, and taped the drip in so that he couldn't pull it out.

Images whirled around in his brain, questions. The others kept asking him questions too. His name, how he had got there. He couldn't remember his name, he didn't know where there was, but he tried to tell them. Then they had patiently told him that someone was coming. They gave him a name, he tried to match the word to the vague image of a woman in his head. The woman who would help him stay safe. There was something very important he had to tell her... but he just couldn't remember.

~*~*~*~*~

He put down the phone, their missing officer had been found. He paused for a second, then picked it up. Only one person to call, the others would know soon enough. But she needed to know first. She was the best, he knew that, but she had thrown everything she had into this case. She'd invested herself in a way that he'd never seen from her before, in theory it ought to be someone more senior, but she'd given so much, and she was close to their missing officer. Closer than anyone else. So he was sending the best.

The door opened. "I'm on my way." she said. He nodded, was about to say something, when he realised that she'd already gone.

It was a long drive. But she didn't care. She'd been prepared for this two hours after he first disappeared. As she drove, she pondered the information she'd been given, and prepared herself for what she would find at the end of the journey.

~*~*~*~*~

She listened to the doctor, and tried to clamp down on her rising fear. He needed her that was all that really mattered.

"He had enough rohipnol in his system to tranquilise an elephant. It was a miracle he could walk. But."

She looked at him intently. "There are side effects. Memory loss, disorientation... I'm afraid he cannot remember his name, who he is, or how he got here."

"Thank you doctor." she said. Her heart was quaking but she pushed the door open and headed for the bed.

He was on his side, the covers disarranged as though he had experienced a nightmare of some sort, his splinted arm with the drip feed resting on a pillow. She pulled the chair closer to the bed and took his hand. The glazed eyes opened.

"Hun... it's me, Jo....." she gently patted his cheek with her free hand "come on Stu...it's me."

His fingers closed round her hand like a vice, he recognised something in voice, in the face before him.... he would be safe with her... now he had to remember the important thing he had to tell her.


	4. Memory

He was there three days - Jo had to tell him that. He had a watch which she bought for him to replace the one which had been smashed, but he was still having trouble with time. It seemed to expand and contract, and he couldn't get a handle on it.

He knew he spent most of his time in hospital just sleeping. His mind was still clouded. He could see things in his mind's eye, but when he reached out to grab the memory, it eluded him. The treatment for the drugs in his system didn't seem to help much. The doctor told him things would come back to him, that his condition was a stress response to what had happened to him as much as the rohipnol that had been forced into him. But he wasn't even sure what had really happened. He knew his name was Stuart Turner because Jo had told him so, but his name was just two words, and held no special meaning for him. He was apparently a detective sergeant in the Met. He had vague memories of that. Occasionally a face or a voice would become clear. He started to write things down, the only way he could keep hold of all the threads. His only constant was Jo. He knew he was safe with her. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but that thread he held onto fiercely. Nothing else was certain.

They released him from hospital, with instructions for rest, and medication, but no promise he would get his old life back soon. He was living a half-life, somewhere between a nightmare and a reality, trapped inside his own forgetful mind. Which was forgetting something very important. He tried desperately to find it, because he knew it was vital. But he didn't know why.

And still it eluded him.

" Ready to go home?" Jo was speaking and he smiled at her, turmoil in his heart_. Home_ he thought with slight bitterness; he couldn't even picture where he lived. But he didn't say that, he couldn't discourage Jo. So instead he nodded. Silent assent was some how less of a lie. He wasn't ready for anything beyond the four walls of the room in which Jo had found him.

On the back seat there was a large brown paper parcel next to the suitcase that Jo had bought with her. He knew the parcel contained his clothes and other evidence Jo was taking back to London to their place of work. He shivered. The sight of the bag was enough to bring a flash of something: dark, rain, cold, walking on though his bare feet were being torn by the stones beneath them.

She watched him, concerned. He was clutching the notebook she had given him as though it was a lifeline. She had gone out the first day and bought it when everything was so jumbled up; he wasn't making any kind of rational sense that day. He scribbled all of his thoughts in there, trying to make connections. The way he pronounced her name when he spoke to her sounded like he had just learnt it, rather than having known it for years, and that worried her too. The doctor hadn't been able to hold out all that much hope. The effects of the rohipnol were lingering, but the amnesia had a more insidious and deep rooted cause. The rohipnol was merely the catalyst. Some event had taken place almost eight days ago that was so traumatic he had blocked it from his memory, and the drugs had done the rest. Torn great gaping holes in his short-term memory. In many ways, he was a blank canvas.


	5. Homecoming

Jo sifted through the paperwork on her desk, checking and double checking her notes. They were nowhere on the case and they knew it. Just as they knew the missing piece was locked away in the mind of a man who could barely remember his own name. DCI Meadows and DI Manson had tried to talk to him the day she'd brought him back to London, but it was hopeless. He was tired from the journey and incoherent. Making absolutely no sense.

She had taken him to his flat first. A few tiny victories. He remembered things within his flat, such as where his bedroom was in relation to the bathroom and his playstation and books, and the freezer with its neat and lonely stack of microwave meals for one. But he couldn't live alone. Certainly not immediately, so they'd packed up some of his belongings, she'd rounded up some of his music, dvds and games, and his playstation console and she'd taken him home with her. To find Meadows and Manson waiting for them.

It was only after they'd left that Jo had wondered if they were thinking that he was somehow involved in his own misfortune. One look at the state of him told them otherwise. Meadows had come over all fatherly, and despite the situation, Jo found herself smiling at his soliticious concern for her partner's well being.

It hadn't been without its problems, having him live with her. Not the least the huge gaps in his memory making every day things that she took for granted hazardous. Like him leaving the ring on after boiling some milk. Attending a hospital appointment, and then being unable to get back to her house, because he couldn't remember where it was. That one was rough. He'd refused to leave the house for three days after that. Frightened that he wouldn't be able to remember where he lived again.

He found it all stressful and frustrating, and sometimes his anger boiled over. But never at her. He remembered faces and voices, names were mostly still eluding him. After some prompting he remembered Stevie's name, although it still sounded a little mechanical when he said it, and he recognised Will, Terry, Grace and Mickey, although remembering their names was another matter. He filled the notebook, and she bought him another.

There were some victories. His sister came to visit, and brought her younger daughter, and he recalled their names. He could talk about the distant past reasonably well. His childhood. But his mother's death was a closed book. Some more recent incidents came to mind. Such as the expresso maker he'd got his sister to buy for Stevie's christmas present, and the book he'd bought Jo for her present. Actual relationships were more difficult, his relationship with Sam had been brought up, casually in conversation only that morning. But he had drawn a complete blank. Carefully, Jo ran though a few of the women he'd flirted with or asked out. Blanks. All of them. His mind had shut out all of his past romantic history.

She looked at the notes she had made. Remembering that last day, before this nightmare had begun. He'd been thoughtful, and stressed by their lack of progress on the case. Intelligence had said that they had a new gang on their patch, and that this gang were ruthless. He'd been given the opportunity to run it as SIO, something that he relished. Then it had been moved up the command chain, and he was hurt by that, even though he acknowledged that it was bigger than anyone had anticipated, they were talking about a robbery worth millions. She'd put a companionable arm round his shoulders as they were alone, and tried to persuade him to come for a drink, but he'd said he was tired and that he was going to go home. Another time, and he'd smiled at her. She'd given his shoulder a little squeeze and then watched him walk away.

Now she wished that she had gone with him. Pulled him to the pub despite his protests. Done anything but let him walk away. Because that moment had redefined both their lives.


	6. Sleeper

She relaxed in her chair. The end of a long day. And still they didn't have a clue. Even an inkling that there was a cuckoo in their midst. She liked that. It appealed to her sense of justice. For all the times she'd felt sidelined. Now she was the puppet master, pulling the strings. Stuart coming across them in the darkened car park was her one mistake. But even that had been taken care of, there was nothing to worry about, the driver had come up behind him swiftly even as he'd stopped dead in shock. She had watched his expression change as he made the connection, and then one swift blow to the head and he'd been taken far away.

Then when Stuart had been found, and Jo had raced to the rescue, as she had known Jo was bound to; she'd been worried. Under the guise of solicitious worry about his condition, she'd been to see him alone. Nothing. Not a flicker of recognition. He'd locked out his last sight of her from his head, and the drugs they'd forced into his system, keeping him doped for almost three days, had done the rest. His memory and the ability to make connections was broken and that was all she needed to know. It was a pity that he hadn't been killed according to the instructions given, but drugging him had scrambled his memory enough. She had been back to see him twice since, both times in the company of others, but still nothing. He couldn't even remember her name, so he was no longer a threat.

One of the major advantages she had was that she was trusted. Her superiors were even relying upon her analytical mind. She could move through them and talk about things, and absorb information like a sponge, which she would later share with her lover. And what a love affair it was. Everything else paled into insignificance next to it. Not her life, not her career, not her previous relationships. Nothing. Her consuming passion was him.

They matched each other perfectly. Unlike all her previous relationships, this was a partnership of equals, and he appreciated her mind as much as her body. She had given both willingly, and what she had got back in return ignited her passion in a way that no one else had managed before. He was as necessary to her as breathing, and when he had spoken of his plan, she had coolly helped him refine it. She had rejoiced in it. Pointing out ways in which he might betray himself, closing the loopholes, providing the trapdoors, alternatives, intelligence. The perfect crime. And she was in the perfect position to create such a plan. There was a delicious irony to her plan, like the perfect game of chess. In some ways it went towards the disconnection she had felt when she was passed over for promotion, a thousand other slights that had made her resent everything.

She reached over and switched out the light on her desk. It was time to go. He would be waiting for her, and they would go home together, she would unwind with a glass of wine, and they would talk while he made dinner. The perfect picture of domestic bliss. She smiled a little at the irony of that. They were to domestication what a jungle cat was to a tabby, but it was in the little things, the partnership, in which she took the greatest pride.


	7. Fragments

He straddled the sun lounger in the tiny back garden, and tried to make sense of it all. His three notebooks spread out before him, he idly flicked the pages backwards and forwards. Trying to pull it all together. It was like a giant jigsaw, and he only had some of the pieces. There was something there at the back of his mind but weeks of trying to force it out into the light was getting him nowhere. He wondered if he was ever going to get his life back. It was all locked away inside his mind, according to his psycho-therapist. She had tried several techniques to unlock his past, but it remained stubbornly elusive. Scraps and fragments existed and he was starting to put them together, but it was all so slow. And big holes remained. Grey gaps in his mind filled with nothing substantial.

Slowly he pushed the books off the end of the sun lounger. Pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around his legs. He hunched over and closed his eyes. He wasn't sure how much more he could take.

She watched him from the kitchen window. She'd come home directly after work, at first when she'd opened the front door and realised he wasn't in the house, she had felt a sense of fear. His memory problems meant that he struggled when he went out alone. She had walked into the kitchen, debating with herself whether she would discreetly call Tony or Roger, or perhaps even Smithy. Just in case. Then she'd seen him in the garden. She put her hand on the back door handle, intending to go out and join him. She watched him push the books off the lounger, and curl into himself and she paused for a moment.

She needed that moment. It hurt to see him like this. And truth be told, she had no idea if he would ever recover sufficiently to lead anything like a normal life again. She thought about it as she mulled the reality over in her mind, even though she knew what she was going to do. Everyone else seemed to have abandoned him to his fate, even his sister; she wasn't going to walk out on him now.

She tugged open the back door and went out.

He raised his head as she sat down next to him on the lounger. He looked so different from his usual immaculate groomed self, he was unshaven, the baggy black shorts he was wearing, crumpled and scruffy looking, the vest top old and much washed.

He looked at her. "Is it ever going to get better?" The hopelessness in his tone tugged at her heart.

"Stu. I don't know." she gently patted his back, "you've had a brain injury... it's all going to take a lot of time."

He looked away for a moment. "What if it doesn't get any better?" He looked straight at her "If I don't get my life back? What's going to happen then?"

Her arm slid further around his shoulders, and she tugged him gently towards her. "We're in this together," she rested her head against his shoulder "I'm not going to abandon you."

He slid a hand over hers, and looked down at their entwined fingers for a moment.

"I don't even know how I know that you mean what you say. But I do." He lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed the back of her hand. "I...." he struggled to connect the words in his head, and she leaned against him.

"I know, hun." She turned her head, and they looked at each other. "I know," she breathed.


	8. Remember

Jo carefully packed the files into the boxes. They had nothing. Stuart had been left crippled by an attack which might have been linked to the rumours of a big robbery. But they had nothing concrete, and finally Supt. Heaton had decreed that they needed to move on. Meadows had been unhappy about it, but basically agreed with Heaton.

Jo longed to protest. Her friend's life was shattered. Somewhere locked away in his damaged mind was the key to a crime. That crime was a monsterous one, she could feel it. Her gut was telling her that the answer was close. But she had been told to put it all to one side. That hurt her. Just the thought of telling him that the cause of his suffering would go un-investigated, and that no one would be brought to justice over it made her angry.

She picked up the folder on his stay in hospital in Wales. _Found wandering along a back road in his bare feet, a heavy chain securing his wrists, wrapped round his arms and body. Toxicology reported extremely high levels of rohipnol in his system._ She looked at the pictures that they had taken of his injuries. Mostly cuts and bruises, but he'd been very distressed when he'd been examined, and when the doctor had tried to treat him, the nursing staff had had a real battle on their hands.

Jo folded the file away into the box, remembering her first sight of him; exhausted, distressed, curled up on the edge of the hospital bed; they'd had to splint his right arm to keep the drip in, and it was stuck out stiffly across a couple of pillows. Then came the shock when she sat down next to him and realised the extent of the damage. He looked at her in total bewilderment, as though he had never seen her before; he seemed to recognise that he would be safe with her, but he was making almost no sense that first day. She was used to Stuart's ability to snap back, to have an answer for anything; her sergeant was vocal, full of himself, inclined to self promote, outwardly confident, inwardly insecure. The man in the hospital bed was a world away from that. Hesitant. Scared. Lost. Sometimes he would lose the thread in the middle of a sentence, and stare at her in utter confusion. That wasn't the Stu that she knew and had grown very fond of.

It was heart breaking to see him in that condition. The five weeks since she had brought him home, some things had improved, his speech was less hesitant and confused, he remembered her name more often than not, and he was starting to remember a few other things. He'd filled three notebooks with fragments, and each evening she would sit down with him for an attempt at filling in some of the blanks. He was still reclusive, disliking big crowds, worrying about going out anywhere. She hadn't been able to coax him to the pub, even amongst his co-workers.

Jo sighed and slotted the various materials, pictures and other evidence into the box. She wasn't giving up on this. She owed it to her friend. His life had been ripped apart, and he stood little chance of a full recovery. As she closed the lid, she made up her mind. Picked up the phone and dialled her home number. He answered on the fifth ring.

"Stu, it's me. Jo." even telling him who she was had become instinctive, like counting the rings until he picked up the phone, "Stu. I want you to come to the pub tonight. And this time I'm not going to take no for an answer."

"I don't know." he mumbled.

But she wasn't about to give in on this one. Eventually, with a lot of coaxing he gave in. "Write it down." she reminded him.

~*~*~*~*~

She walked down the ramp, towards him. "Ready?" she held out her hand, and he took it in his. "No." he sighed, "but I can manage." His fingers closed around hers tightly, giving lie to his outward appearance of calmness.

They walked across the car park together, and at the end, he stopped and turned. An expression of worry crossed his face. Jo squeezed his hand. "What's up?"

"I've been here before." he looked at her, there was definite recognition in his tone, and she resisted the urge to make the observation that he'd been in that car park many times.

"What do you mean, Stu?" she quietly prompted, and a queasy feeling came over her all of a sudden. The expression on his face was naked fear.

"I…. don't know." He mumbled. Shadow images, a car, a woman…. Someone who shouldn't have been there. Jo clutched his hand firmly, he was shivering, the force of his distress surprised and upset her. A sudden feeling of dread inched its way up her spine, and she glanced around at the car park. She didn't know what she expected to see, but there was nothing there. Gently she urged him to follow her, and they left that cold place.

~*~*~*~*~

She watched them cross the car park from the office window. She saw him hesitate. Saw Jo look around. He remembered nothing. She had watched him on and off for a while just in case. But this looked like a memory. She mulled over the possibilities, if he was starting to remember, he would be a danger to them. _Too bad_, she thought.


	9. Realisation

Jo watched her partner closely. Stu was quieter and more withdrawn than ever, and she wondered if dragging him to the pub had been a bad idea. He didn't seem remotely comfortable, the others had tried to draw him out a little, but when he remained mostly unresponsive, they'd drifted away.

"Another drink, hun?" she nudged him gently, he looked up at her and shook his head. Suddenly all she wanted to do was get out of there. It had definitely been a mistake to have forced the issue. "Do you want to go?" His eyeline cheated her slightly, and for an instant an expression of fear crossed his face; she looked across to see what he was looking at, but he looked down and away, and she couldn't be sure what it was that scared him. He nodded; then she was really worried. Even in the almost six weeks since he'd been found, he had never been that withdrawn.

Jo made their excuses and they left the pub. Out in the cold night air he seemed a little less stressed. As they reached her car, she asked the thing that had been on her mind half the night "What was up back there, hun?" She asked quietly.

He hesitated, "I don't know..." he settled into the passenger seat and turned to face her, "I... have this... image... it's in my head... and it won't go.... away. But I can't see... her face."

Her fingers twisted the key in the ignition as her mind raced. "Her face? Stu, you've never mentioned a woman before!" _Don't get excited, Jo..._ "A woman, Stu."

"And there was someone else." He sounded more confident now, a flicker of the old Stuart, "he wasn't supposed to be there."

Trying to contain the rush of excitement, she coaxed him to talk about it. Patiently listening to his awkward, slightly rambling story again. _Breakthrough_, she could feel it; feel it in that brief flash of his old confidence, in him starting to remember an event so traumatic it had literally wiped his memory.

~*~*~*~*~

A cool pair of eyes watched the taillights of the car until it was out of sight. He was starting to remember something. No matter, the little additive to his drink would start acting soon, and then the loose end would be taken care of. The smile that crossed the face of the watcher was cold and cunning, and perhaps not quite sane.

~*~*~*~*~

Jo put the kettle on, they'd been home half an hour or so, and she had painstakingly worked her way through Stu's story. _It all comes down to that car park... which means..._ she shied away from the thought. That one of their colleagues was responsible, either directly or indirectly, for Stuart's condition; well that was a thought that was too horrible to believe. They'd been together as a team for a long time. That one of them could have done that, let alone the betrayal. This went beyond corruption, and struck at the heart of something that she'd spent her entire career reinforcing.

There was a sound behind her, and he called her name; she turned. "Stu?"

"I... feel.... strange..." he leant against the doorframe, and she moved to support him and guide him back to the sofa.

His legs felt like lead, and he felt detached from his body. He fell rather than sat on the sofa. Jo sat next to him, and he collapsed into her. Her arm went round him to support him, and she reached for her mobile with her free hand.

"Hang on, Stu..." _please..._ she begged silently, as he lolled against her, barely maintaining. Frantically she connected with the ambulance service.


	10. Poison

Jo sat next to Stuart's bed and prayed; the doctors were desperately running tests in an attempt to identify the toxin, but he was deteriorating. By the time the ambulance arrived at St Hugh's a rash was spreading across his neck and down his chest, his breathing was laboured and he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

The door opened, and she looked up. Jack Meadows stood there. "Guv." She acknowledged quietly.

"How is he?"

"He's dying." Her voice trembled and he could see she was holding on with an effort. "It's some kind of poison, they're trying to identify it. If they can do it quickly, he stands a good chance. But he's getting weaker by the minute."

He looked at her intently. He knew what Stuart meant to her, and what she meant to Stuart. The two of them were the unlikeliest friendship in the station. When Stuart disappeared, it was Jo who lead the hunt for him. When he was found, she drove out to Wales to pick him up. When it became obvious that his injuries meant that he could no longer live alone, she took him in.

And now his young sergeant was dying. Unless they could analyse the poison, Stuart was unlikely to survive the night, according to the doctors. Jack had looked through the window and seen them together; and he had known that Stuart would fight, he wouldn't just give in, Jo wouldn't give him that option.

Stuart's fingers were meshed with Jo's and when Jack moved up closer to the bed, his eyes opened. "Guv?" he whispered. Jack was torn between relief that Stuart had recognised him, and the pain that his memory was returning as something worse was attacking him.

"Stuart." Jack acknowledged. Feeling old and tired, he pulled up a chair and sat down; prepared to see it through to the bitter end if need be. The look of gratitude that Jo shot him, almost made him tear up. He watched Jo's free hand gently stroking Stuart's forearm, as Stuart drifted back to sleep. Jack hoped it was sleep, because the other possibility was too horrific to contemplate.

"You know that this means one of us is responsible." Jo's voice was scarce above a whisper, but to Jack's ears her words sounded as loud as a thunderclap. As usual, Jo had voiced the words that Jack didn't want to hear, but that didn't mean that they weren't the truth.

Jack nodded. Non-verbal acceptance seemed the lesser of two evils. Through the fiasco with Zain, Jack had held onto the hope that the nightmare wouldn't break the team. Honey's murder could have destroyed them, but somehow it seemed to unify people. This had the potential to tear them apart again. Honey's shooting was to some extent an accident, a crime on the spur of the moment, for all its tragedy, it was not the deliberate and pre-meditated attempted murder of one of their own.

Stuart moved, at first he thought it was restlessness, then as Stuart's entire body convulsed, Jack realised the level of pain he had to be in. Jo's fingers tightened on Stuart's hand, and he watched her soothe her partner gently.

"Can't they do more for the pain?" Jack was horrified.

"Not until they can treat the poison." Jo's voice was shaking, and she glanced desperately towards the door.

They waited.

~*~*~*~*~

Jo sat up slowly, she'd been there all night. They'd identified the toxin, and eventually treated him. She'd waited anxiously by his side for the antidote to start working, and then scarcely slept as she hoped and prayed for his recovery. The doctor treating him had ordered a battery of tests, and the initial results were hopeful; with care he could be considered to be out of immediate danger, but there was the possibility of damage to his kidneys. They would be making a decision on the need for dialysis later in the day.

She was exhausted, but reluctant to leave. She didn't want him to wake up alone. Jack had stayed until the early hours, until well after they'd administered the anti-toxin. And she wanted answers. Why a member of their own small, _trusted_, team had tried to kill Stuart.

Jo opened her bag, as they were leaving, and Stuart was being taken to the ambulance, she'd grabbed her handbag, and his three note books. Now she took them out. Somewhere in his scribbling, was a series of connections that added up to a whole. She knew it. But how to work out what.

She opened the first book. He had been very ill when she'd first given it to him, and his writing was sloppy and difficult to read. It felt odd, reading it, like an intrusion. Even though they'd sat down night after night together, and tried to make sense of it. As he improved, and the gaps in his memory got less and he had started to make lists, and group things into boxes.

Jo closed the notebook for a moment, surprised at her own feelings. Reading through his writing, she could see glimpses of her friend in there, it was like a jigsaw, and assembling the pieces would take a lot of time. If at the end of it, she got her friend back, whole, and healthy; well, she'd take that.

"Take them."

She looked up, startled. "Stu?" He smiled, weak, exhausted, and still far from out of danger, but still alive.

"Fix this... Jo... please."

His hand moved, and Jo clasped it between both of hers. "I'll try, hun." She promised. His hand squeezed hers, and he seemed to drift back to sleep.

_I'll fix this hun, for you, and for me... and for all the others. Someone's a traitor and I'm going to find them._


	11. Investigation

Jo carried Stu's notebooks into work. She was going to go through them, page by page, line by line if necessary. The key was in there, she knew it.

Meadows had arranged it so that Stuart would never be left alone; two attempts had been made on his life, and it was sheer luck that he'd survived them. No one was going to be given a third shot. A uniform officer would be with Stuart every minute of the day and night. He studied Stuart's file, more in the hope that something might leap out at him than any real expectation of anything showing up.

Jack pondered a while. They definitely had a traitor in their midst. That was the only rational explanation. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet, paced backwards and forwards a few times. Then he was outside the main CID office hardly realising where he was going. He put his hand on the door handle, and paused. Looked in through the glass panel in the door, at the quietly productive office, one among them was a traitor. Flashbacks in his mind, Zain... gone bad because he crossed the line. They'd come through that one, despite Honey's death.

Jack stepped back, and turned away. He needed someone on the outside and the inside. Someone he could call in without a great deal of suspicion, someone who knew most of the team, and who could slot back into life as soon as possible. He headed back to his office, and dialled a number.

~*~*~*~*~

"What do you want me to do, Guv." Phil sat across from Meadows.

"I need you to replace Stuart Turner in the interim, but we have a more serious problem." Jack outlined the situation. "You have Jo, but other than that, everyone else is not in the loop." Jack leaned forward, "we need this sorted quickly and quietly. We cannot afford another Zain situation."

_Stuart?_ Phil's lips twitched. There was something deeply satisfying about that; and two attempts on Stuart's life, well, that came as no surprise. "Guv," he acknowledged, keeping the rest to himself. Phil and Stuart had been big rivals while Phil was still at Sun Hill, and despite the apparent seriousness of the situation, there was a little skip in Phil's soul, getting one over his old enemy. He shook hands with Meadows and went in search of his old friend, Jo.

An hour later, Phil was revising his estimate of the entire situation. Whatever his relationship had been to Stuart, Phil didn't wish that on the guy; and as he followed Jo into the dimly lit private room, he realised that she wasn't exaggerating, Stuart Turner was seriously ill. "He may not recognise you," Jo kept her voice low, "even if he does, he probably won't recall your name."

Phil moved up close to the bed, whatever he expected, this was worse. "Stu... mate?" Stuart's eyes opened a fraction, and he looked up at Phil. It was the total lack of recognition that spooked him, Phil decided. Stuart looked at him as though he was a complete stranger. "It's me, Phil... you know... Sam... me... ... you??" Phil trailed off, it clearly meant nothing to his former colleague. Stuart just looked puzzled and distressed.

"Stu..." Jo moved between Phil and the bedside, took her partner's hand and squeezed it, "Phil's here to help us." Phil nodded and smiled... feeling vaguely foolish. It wasn't some sort of put on. Stuart really had no idea who he was. And Phil was feeling something he never expected to feel for Stuart Turner. Pity.

It was when Stuart muttered something to Jo, that Phil was officially disturbed, aside from Jo's name, the hesitancy, the pauses between words, that wasn't the strong, confident and arrogant Stuart that Phil remembered; and he shot a sideways look at Jo in horror.

Her answering smile was bright, but a little wobbly. She continued to hold Stuart's hand as she explained the situation, "whoever did this, knocked him cold, shot him full of something, then they dosed him with rohypnol to keep him quiet. Whatever he saw, and the drugs in his system have caused amnesia, he barely remembers his own name." She bit her lip, and Phil put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze, "he was getting better, just starting to put his life back together and now this."

"Phil, I can't abandon him, and he deserves some kind of justice. Will you help?"

Phil looked at her. "You and Stuart?"

She pursed her lips slightly, and put her head on one side, "hardly. I haven't suddenly turned straight. But we're close, and there's nobody on his side." Jo squeezed Stuart's hand, "he saved me, this is me trying to save him."

Phil could sense there was more to it than that, perhaps more than Jo realised, but he kept his mouth shut. Certain that he was going to need all his native cunning to capture their traitor, and that having Jo in his camp was vital.


End file.
